Fermilab's search for sterile neutrinos

Fermilab has long been one of the world's preeminent centers of accelerator-based neutrino research. In this video, Dr. Don explains the Short-Baseline Neutrino Program and what it hopes to find. Besides searching for an elusive theoretical particle called the sterile neutrino, SBN is also developing technologies and personnel to ensure that Fermilab plays a leadership role in neutrino research for the next several decades.
Is there a center of the universe?:
• Where did the Big Bang...
How will PIP-II take Fermilab to the next level?:
• How will PIP-II take F...
What is the DUNE experiment?:
• What is the DUNE exper...
Do neutrinos and antimatter neutrinos oscillate differently?:
• Can leptogenesis expla...
Neutrinos: Nature's Identity Thieves?:
• Neutrinos: Nature's Id...
What are neutrinos?:
• Neutrinos: Nature's G...
Sterile neutrinos and seesaws:
• Sterile neutrinos and ...
How do you make a neutrino beam?:
• How do you make a neut...
How do you detect a neutrino?:
• How do you detect a ne...
Fermilab physics 101:
www.fnal.gov/p...
Fermilab home page:
fnal.gov

[@seionne85]

I really appreciate you taking the time out of your life to produce these for us

[@redbaronsnoopy2346]

As usual, Dr. Lincoln and Fermilab, brilliant update and maintaining the excitement for pure science & research. Thanks to you all. Looking forward to more.

[@obviouslytom]

Grew up 2 blocks from the main entrance of Fermi and always had fun going around the property during my childhood. Was good friends with Dr. Kolb's family for a time as well. Fermi is really the only thing I miss about Illinois.

[@Maxfr8]

Grew up here in Aurora, so Fermi was a mainstay for the area, yes.

[@chiseldrock]

all the best in the new year to the whole FERMILAB team. To infinity and beyond!

[@gregl4791]

Please keep on producing these outstanding videos. They are without a doubt, among the best science-related videos on KZbin.

[@blancaestela547]

Gracias por compartir tan importantes datos. Felicidades a todo el equipo de Fermilab🎉

[@brewdog8626]

My first thought was; who is going round sterilising all of these poor neutrinos and what have they ever done to us? Second thought was; what a bad joke that was but at least I got to see another fancinating video by Dr. Lincon and what fermilab are planning. I look forward to see what is learned. Possibly in a later vid? I could listed to Dr. Lincon for hours and thanks to this channel I have :)

[@4draven418]

Good start to 2024 Dr. Lincoln. Eagerly await further updates.

[@milesmcquillen1885]

The most important thing is, we need a petition to bring back the Dr. Don 'stache.

[@bennylloyd-willner9667]

Agree, I'm starting to get used to the no-stache face... ...and that is an awful thing to happen with my world😳

[@davidschneide5422]

Sometimes, it's the lady's choice. ("no more scratchy head")

[@bennylloyd-willner9667]

@@davidschneide5422 if so, she should bow to the science community and deal with it 😁

[@windsorek]

Please don't

[@mamamheus7751]

Nope, definitely better looking as he is!

[@juandavidgilwiedman]

Love your work, Mr Lincoln

[@PATRIK67KALLBACK]

Thank you Don for sharing the update!

[@Pottery4Life]

Thank you, Dr. Lincoln.

[@MilosevicOgnjan]

As always, fascinating.... It would be great to have one video about the potential practical applicaitions of such future discoveries that will be made in Fermilab.

[@jaspertuin2073]

One thing my wandering mind came up with is using strong, precise neutrino beams as communication encoders/carriers. They would be perfect because they can go trough matter without interacting as ghostly as they are, yet hard to utilise untill we understand them better. But imagine if used for the something like the internet it could mean we can beam data trough the earth to the desired receiver instead of having to rely on our gigantic cable network that goes around the surface, cutting time and making the whole thing operate faster. Also creates options for a more direct peer-to-peer approach for communication. Other things that pop to mind are maybe they can be used for imaging tools for new purposes, like X-ray has. We just need to know them with more precision and how they do interact with other physics. Cool little things, they are! Edit: This starts to sound a lot like sub-space communication from Star Trek hehehe

[@exscape]

Someone with more knowledge can probably come with some specific answers as to how this can help, but it's often the case that research like this leads to technologies that were entirely unintended. If scientists didn't play around with electricity in the 1800s with no real clue of its applications, what would the world look like today? And research into quantum phenomena directly leads to things like better semiconductors and thus modern technology.

[@glowerworm]

The applications are always largely the same with high energy physics. There's usually a few go-to ones: Sometimes learning the rules of our universe don't have obvious applications right now, but will down the line. An example is Einstein coming up with special and general relativity (both seemingly having no use for the layman in the 1930s), and both of those were incredibly important 50 years later when the US needed to perfectly sync 26 satellites in motion to create a Global Position System (GPS, which everybody uses near daily). Another benefit of high energy physics research is the stuff that's invented in the journey. Such as the world wide web (made to share documents at CERN), or better concrete or tunnel-bores or air-motion systems for underground colliders. Which then help mining and city foundation-laying operations worldwide. A third benefit is the actual direct benefits of the discovery, whatever it may be. Sometimes there's an immediate use (such as with electric lightbulbs or xray scans), and sometimes it's a delayed use (such as burning information into a DVD using lasers, or some future radiation proofing of shuttles for trips to Mars. The fourth, more philosophical benefit is that it yields something we can be proud of as humans. A military veteran or congressman might wonder how high energy research might aid in the military defense of the United States. A better thing to wonder is what in the United States is worth defending if not our arts and scientific achievements.

[@0neIntangible]

The ToE neutrino.

[@bjornfeuerbacher5514]

@@jaspertuin2073 Considerung how weakly they interact, I'd say they are very impractical both for communication and for imaging. You'd need to emit a _huge_ amount of them so that you can receive even some tiny few at the end. And obviously for emitting a huge amount of them, you'd need a huge amount of energy.

[@shazmunchdylbertoid]

oh wow! I've been so curious about sterile neutrinos lately, this is well timed

[@sapelesteve]

The SBN program sounds amazing Dr. Don! Happy New Year to you & the entire Fermilab team! I am looking forward to what you have in store for us in 2024! 👍👍💥💥

[@SolaceEasy]

Top notch presentation, thanks!

[@Ihab.A]

Dr. Lincoln I love your videos and I am watching your invaluable courses on Wondrium which I love!

[@ravenragnar]

S tier quality video sir.

[@TheyCallMeNewb]

.. What a show (as well as opening and closing cards)!

[@Nightscape_]

It's got be so awesome to work at Fermilab.

[@brothermine2292]

2:49 reminds me of a quote about Isis near the end of the "Assignment: Earth" episode of Star Trek: "That, Miss Lincoln, is simply my cat."

[@kumagoro]

that‘s cool - thank you for this video

[@tresajessygeorge210]

THANK YOU... PROF. DR. LINCOLN...!!!

[@NorthernChev]

I love the new DUNE logo.

[@ThoughtsAreReal]

Best wishes to Fermilab and to you, Dr. Don. I've heard about the troubles there and I'd hate to see the best accelerator program in the US go away.

[@umbrellajack]

"Fermilab is awesome" -Fermilab

[@umbrellajack]

(I'm just playing lmao😂)

[@maherelachkar4470]

Merry Christmas and happy new year

[@bastiaan7777777]

Happy Easter!

[@DanielKRui]

Glad to hear an update. This winter break I watched a lot of older videos about such physics topics, and became obsessed with finding the most recent news.

[@FrancisFjordCupola]

I think of FermiLab as CERNino. Or the smaller non-hadron collider. But I do hope they can learn a lot more about neutrino's.

[@cathysandy3986]

I love Dr Don. More videos!😊

[@Nudnik1]

Aren't Neutrinos Italian Neutrons? And sterile Neutrinos can't have off spring ? 😮 I worked at BNL /AGS / RHIC we made components for Fermilab shared data etc . Wish they had a channel like this . Excellent 👍

[@silentminecraftgamer1601]

Physics is everything! :D

[@GM-o6i]

As a particle physicist, I wish Fermilab success ❤😊 Happy New Year 🌟🌟🌟🙏🙏🙏👍👍👍

[@KuK137]

Sabine Hossenfelder just smeared Dune in several videos out of her anti-accelerator obsession so expect influx of kids calling this program useless garbage...

[@Bassotronics]

Happy 2024! 🎊 🎉

[@Condor512]

Good Morning, Dr. Don 👋😁. Thank You once more for another interesting and informative video. And a 'super thanks' for the links to the other videos. ps: A belated Happy New Year to you and yours. May 2024 bring cool new discoveries in physics.

[@mjkluck]

Good stuff, Doc.

[@polanve]

If sterile neutrinos don't interact via the weak force, how do we detect them?

[@fredbloggs8072]

I don't think they can be detected directly, but Fermilab can (hopefully) find out if they truly exist by examining more closely the behavior of the neutrinos that they can detect.

[@DrDeuteron]

it's indirect. It modifies the oscillation vs. propagation behavior in a manner that is inconsistent with 3 states. It's kind of light shinning unpolarized light on a birefringent crystal...you instantly see that light has two different propagation states, but there is no room in the observation to accommodate an unseen 3rd state.

[@WilhelmvonFahrvergnugen]

2:40 consistent with, never proved.

[@kbotjammer]

4:05 Looks like the movie "Event Horizon".

[@samwisegamgee4659]

Whoa! Doesn't another type of Neutrino muck up the nice symmetric grid in the Standard Model?

[@juliavixen176]

That "symmetric grid" illustration that everyone puts in pop-sci videos is crap. It's really misleading and leaves out a lot of information. There are other illustrations that are better. If the chart included chirality, then the sterile neutrino would fit into an obvious gap. (Anyway, that chart doesn't show anti-particles, or color charge... there are several different gluons, for example. Above the electroweak unification energy the W±, Z⁰, and photon don't exist, etc. etc.)

[@johnpettit6886]

This is crazy, it's a battle with time.

[@jamesretired5979]

Please tell us about the bison, and why the floors walls and doors are different colors!

[@LynxUrbain]

Did I understand correctly, or am I totally wrong: You measure a number of electrons and muons in each of the two detectors. Then you compare the proportion of muons / electrons to the total of detected particles (or the proportion between the two kind of particles), for each of the two detectors. Then having obtained the composition of the "particle cocktail", you can determine where you are in the oscillation, for a given distance. Or is it a bit more complicated than that?

[@davebright55]

The beam in the video appears to curve around. How do you steer neutrinos? I thought that due to their low interaction properties they would have to travel from their creation and through both detectors in a straight line

[@TheBakedalaskajoe]

3 cheers for a dune reference.

[@johnathanhenley2251]

The spice must flow

[@Toocrash]

An oldtimer likes your contributions, thanks Dr. Don, for showing Fermi Lab

[@JonathanJollimore-w9v]

Neutrinos are really interesting

[@GeoffryGifari]

Huh 500 meters are enough for neutrino to oscillate and detected?

[@_John_P]

They are being artificially produced with energies much smaller than the neutrinos coming from the Sun.

[@LeoStaley]

Question about black holes. I've learned from you and several other physicist explainers on KZbin that an outside observer watching an object fall into a black hole sees it slow down slower and slower approaching the Event Horizon, but never actually fall past the EH. The object falls past the EH normally to itself, but watches all of time pass outside the EH. So how can a black hole grow, from an external perspective, if nothing can ever actually fall into it? And how can an object watch all time pass by as it crosses the EH, if all black holes eventually evaporate in a finite amount of time?

[@AlanTheBeast100]

Zig and zag is metric for flip and flop.

[@DrDeuteron]

no, freedom units use "tomato" and "tomato".

[@charlessmith3758]

As Mr. Spock says; fascinating.

[@deefeickert1100]

Great presentation and I do have a question. In your video between 6:47 - 7:05 the diagram seems to suggest the neutrino beam can be steered around a curve and through non co-linear detectors. How is this possible since they have no charge?

[@CupCakeArmy1]

The protons (red lights) are what are being accelerated and directed at the beam on the far right producing the neutrinos. (green light)

[@pluto9000]

The centre of the universe appears to be my head. I see the same distance in all directions.

[@Marsubleu]

A question, maybe for a future video? Why is zero Kelvin the lowest temperature. And then, is there a highest possible temperature?

[@douglasstrother6584]

Temperature is a measure of average kinetic energy; 0° Kelvin or 0° Rankine correspond to motionless atoms. The Planck Temperature (~10^32°K) is considered the hottest temperature. Look up "Planck Units"; they are quite a trip.

[@bjornfeuerbacher5514]

Temperature is related to high fast particles move. If they don't move at all, you have zero Kelvin. Obviously, moving less than not moving at all is not possible. (Actually, it's a bit more complicated, but that's the essence of the argument.)

[@markstyles1246]

​@@bjornfeuerbacher5514Really dumb question at "I should be asleep but I'm watching physics" o'clock. What would the temperarure be if the average particle speed was, I guess approached, the speed of light? Would that not be the highest temperature? Not awake enough to puzzle through what maximum means when it is more of a limit, or the fact the particles would be a medium affecting the speed of light.

[@bjornfeuerbacher5514]

@@markstyles1246 That depends on how close to the speed of light the average speed is. The closer, the higher the temperature. There is no "highest" temperature there, as you can get arbitrarily close to the speed of light (90%, 99%, 99,9% etc.).

[@clemwalton4767]

Sterile neutrinos wow I never imagined

[@LaboriousCretin]

Please build a detector or 2 for C.N.B. (cosmic neutrino background) to start mapping it.

[@TheReaverOfDarkness]

Math describes the world. Physics *_is_* the world.

[@bjornfeuerbacher5514]

More like "physics describes the world using math".

[@TheReaverOfDarkness]

@@bjornfeuerbacher5514 Nah, I think humans use math to describe physics.

[@bjornfeuerbacher5514]

@@TheReaverOfDarkness Apparently we have a different understand of what "physics" means. :D

[@kc7ekk]

What's so special about liquid argon that you would want to use in DUNE? Why liquid argon and not water or a vacuum or other?

[@trucker-lol]

the real question is, does the black mesa research facility exist, and why you've changed it for working at fermilab dr. lincoln ?

[@rickharold7884]

So cool

[@LightDiodeNeal]

Can't wait for every video to ring the bell, cool subject, cool host, cool venue! The world is better off for these videos. Curiosity is the key to "physics is everything", thanks a million

[@BiswajitBhattacharjee-up8vv]

Good news in Good new year 2024. Same for all members of your team who are making huge things for negligible masses since 1970. As my quest these neutrino is propose to take care of missing energy, then how various oscillation states or flavour is right for same energy lose. You are looking for another one could be a whole generation Feel lucky

[@PBraggMarinette]

Fermi IS the good thing about Chicago

[@СергейБородин-з3ю]

Cool as always ...BUT - Might be better without a "switcheroo" - totally crashed my phocus on TJE subject...had to check first what the swicheroo means and rewatch the video again

[@stevehowe9677]

Have provisions been made (from a design standpoint) to remove the first detector from the stream to see if the percentages of the different particles change in the second detector.

[@alienwarex51i3]

Perfect video when relishing my post-nut clarity

[@kidmohair8151]

you have a video about a cat turning into a jaguar and then into a tiger and then back into a cat? great! I'll have to watch that.

[@bcubed72]

How do you "herd" neutrinos into a beam? They only react by the weak force, right?

[@supercommie]

Can you make a video explaining the theoretical rationale for the existence of sterile neutrinos?

[@Darkwizzrobe]

This is the closest thing I could find on that very subject. kzbin.info/www/bejne/m4m3h2iDmd2Gj5I

[@taloweryus]

Is there any likelihood that detecting the neutrinos is somehow affecting their oscillation behavior?

[@VikingOlberg-NymoenOfNorway]

There should be a third detector 2km or more away from the second. Make it easy for you and make it 3.6, could be a higher loss than expected.

[@oysteinsoreide4323]

can't measuring the same beam twice affect the results? Are not the beam of neutrinos affected in a way, that may change the outcome of the second detection?

[@chrisarmstrong8198]

Since neutrinos are legendary for their (almost) non-existent interactions with everything, how do you form them into a beam and aim them ?

[@_John_P]

They come out of a proton beam aimed at a target. After the protons hit the target, the neutrinos are produced and scatter with greater probability along the path of the protons they originated from.

[@chrisarmstrong8198]

@@_John_P Thanks

[@richardzeitz54]

Sterile neutrinos are a fertile topic!

[@waverod9275]

Wouldn't right handed neutrinos / left handed antineutrinos be sterile? At minimum they would really only interact via gravity.

[@_John_P]

Sterile neutrinos are right-handed neutrinos.

[@antumurikks4861]

can graviton have oscillation ? can it turn someting else ? i hope you kind something above Standard Model

[@stephenzhao5809]

2:30 ... they might be able to change their identity in a process of subatomic switch loop called neutrino oscillation. 4:56 a paper

[@ibrahiymmuhammad4773]

Lim a fan of the anti scoop language

[@yasirpanezai5690]

Gravity, wave particle duality and entanglement are invisible forces

[@_abdul]

Thanks Fermilab for NOT Naming it The "Dark Neutrino".

[@fredbloggs8072]

I bet they were tempted though.

[@bastiaan7777777]

What would be wrong with that?

[@bjornfeuerbacher5514]

@@bastiaan7777777 @_abdul The "dark" in "Dark Matter" means that it does not interact with electromagnetic radiation / photons. Since _all_ neutrinos do not interact in that way, essentially _all_ neutrinos are "dark". (And indeed, many physicists indeed include them in the "dark matter".)

[@catalinamarquez6937]

😱 OMG Mexico hello I have you in my mind too I have to go back and check some underground places 😅

[@andimcc6131]

So to be clear in the experiment diagram at 7:11, in between the three facilities the neutrinos are just passing directly through solid earth, right? I know that's regular for neutrinos but it's still pretty funny

[@hugegamer5988]

My cat changes into a tiger every mealtime, then into a panther stalking more food, finally changing back into a cat again only for it to repeat.

[@douglasstrother6584]

... and then catnaps until the next "pop" of the can.

[@laskey2175]

Getting down to business.

[@datapro007]

Thanks for another great video Don. I always wonder though what the ROI is on these physics experiments i.e. what real-world applications have come from them in say, the last 5 - 10 years?

[@DrDeuteron]

the only real application for neutrino physics (excluding neutrino astronomy) is using neutrino beam under Wall Street to do line-of-sight communication at 0.99999999? the speed of light, beating fiber and EM signals on the surface by micro-to-milli seconds, allowing ultra flash trading. Billions invested, trillions paid out.

[@glowerworm]

The applications are always largely the same with high energy physics. There's usually a few go-to ones: Sometimes learning the rules of our universe don't have obvious applications right now, but will down the line. An example is Einstein coming up with special and general relativity (both seemingly having no use for the layman in the 1930s), and both of those were incredibly important 50 years later when the US needed to perfectly sync 26 satellites in motion to create a Global Position System (GPS, which everybody uses near daily). Another benefit of high energy physics research is the stuff that's invented in the journey. Such as the world wide web (made to share documents at CERN), or better concrete or tunnel-bores or air-motion systems for underground colliders. Which then help mining and city foundation-laying operations worldwide. A third benefit is the actual direct benefits of the discovery, whatever it may be. Sometimes there's an immediate use (such as with electric lightbulbs or xray scans), and sometimes it's a delayed use (such as burning information into a DVD using lasers, or some future radiation proofing of shuttles for trips to Mars. The fourth, more philosophical benefit is that it yields something we can be proud of as humans. A military veteran or congressman might wonder how high energy research might aid in the military defense of the United States. A better thing to wonder is what in the United States is worth defending if not our arts and scientific achievements.

[@andreasoberg2021]

What a perfect answer

[@EliotMcLellan]

IF YOU WANTED THE BEST FOR 'FERMILAB' THAT'D PROBABLY REQUIRE THE SEASONS TO COME BACK, REAL WINTER & LESS SLUMMER - WHOLE THING IS GOING TO THE SLUMMER -- EVERYONE CAN TALK ABOUT THE WORLD'S PROBLEMS WITHOUT THE LACK OF SNOW - AND PPL ARE HELD ACCOUNTABLE! THEY ARE TOO STUPID TO DO THE RIGHT THING, AND IT LOOKS LIKE FERMILAB IS GETTING BUNDLED UP WITH THAT, TOO BAD FOR FERMILAB.. TOO HOT - JUST YESTERDAY I WAS IN THE WOODS AND I NOTICED HOW NONSENSE IS KIND OF LIKE THE BEAUTIFUL SHADE AND AURA THAT A NICE EVERGREEN CANOPY CAN PROVIDE, THE COOL OF NONSENSE, WHAT IS SO GOOD ABOUT IT? ITS LIKE THE NICE SHADE IN AN EVERGREEN FOREST, THAT PECULIAR LIGHT - EVENTHOUGH ALL THE TREES ARE GOOD TO GO - TAMPERING & CONTAMINATION & TOO HOT, TOO MUCH POOR QUALITY TO WHICH FERMILAB IS ALSO A VICTIM

Where's the link to the mentioned video about cat turning to a jaguar turning to a tiger?

[@causewaykayak]

It is called "How do you detect a Neutrino" I don't think UTube allows links.

[@drdon5205]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/aKDWYqWci72Fea8

[@ivance5155]

Since both detectors are on the surface, how will you distinguish between experiment produced neutrinos and those coming from sun

[@drdon5205]

Timing, direction, and energy.

[@ivance5155]

Thanks a lot, trying to grasp. @@drdon5205

[@kenlogsdon7095]

Out of curiosity, a quick Google of solar neutrino flux yielded: "The flux of solar neutrinos at the earth's surface is on the order of 10^11 per square centimeter per second." I can't help but wonder how on Earth (literally) can any experiment discriminate between that density of background neutrino flux and those produced by Fermilab? Is there a good source of info on that?

[@drdon5205]

The neutrinos in the beam are all focused in a very small fraction of a second. In addition, they are much higher energy and beamed in a specific direction. Imposing those criteria basically rules out all solar neutrinos.

[@nunomaroco583]

Hi there, did you know about neutrino4 experiment conducted by Anatolii Serebov.......if I understand they detected right handed neutrino.....

[@shazmunchdylbertoid]

is the difference just that sterile neutrinos would be right handed? is it possible (or just consistent) that there would be three generations as well, we just don't expect them to be generated or seen because the weak force is restricted to left handed fermions? this is confusing stuff 🤔

[@MatthewSuffidy]

Does this oscillation require some sort of interaction with matter? If so, you would expect it not to oscillate in open space. Maybe it conserves energy when it interacts as not to violate it?

[@DrDeuteron]

that is a really good question. The answer is NO! and yes, See: Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein effect...which requires a beginner graduate level to really understand...it's one of the more subtle effects out there.

[@toddhenning8304]

Nice answer DrDeuteron

[@DavidEricNemeth]

I heard and saw news reports that the federal government closed Fermi lab over a decade ago. Is the giant supercollider that was proposed to be built in Texas still being studied by the US senators and representatives? They might be able to detect the smallest parts of the atoms - strings of energy. It is very easy for strings of light to travel to a parallel universe - on a notebook: 😎 It is amazing all a mathematician has to do today is crank out a few trig equations and plug the equations in a computer program today. I could not comprehend calculus, and I took two courses; dropped out last course🤔

[@eugen-m]

can a global network of high-performance neutrino detectors identify, locate and track sources such as nuclear weapons or nuclear submarines in the deep ocean?

[@0neIntangible]

The ToE neutrino.

[@leogama3422]

go fermilab go

[@ricardoabh3242]

So the sterile neutrino is expected to be massive?

[@jamesconlin1581]

Do you think there is a Sterile for each cousin element, and perspective is the reason they can't be seen... like a 2 way mirror works, in essence.